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CNN This Morning
Harris Team Breaks Silence After Campaign Loss; Air Traffic Controller Shortage Could Trigger Slowdowns; Suns' Big Three Come Up Big Against The Lakers. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired November 27, 2024 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:31:30]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, 5:31 a.m. here on the East Coast. It is 2:31 a.m. out in Denver, Colorado where we find this beautiful Christmas tree on Thanksgiving eve here in the U.S. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz thanking grassroots organizers for their support on a call hosted by the Democratic National Committee yesterday urging their supporters to keep up the fight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know this is an uncertain time. I'm clear-eyed about that. I know you're clear- eyed about it and it feels heavy. And I just have to remind you don't you ever let anybody take your power from you. You have the same power that you did before November 5.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: It's been three weeks since Harris lost her White House bid to Donald Trump and now her team also breaking their silence. Four senior members of her campaign team sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Pod Save America's Dan Pfeiffer. He, of course, is a former senior adviser to Barack Obama. And they addressed what they think went wrong for Democrats this cycle.
Of course, one major difficulty -- they had just 107 days and they said that impacted decisions like the number of interviews Harris could do. Trump, on the other hand, made it part of his campaign to appear across popular podcasts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One of the things I like about doing a show like this -- can you imagine Kamala doing this show? She --
JOE ROGAN, HOST, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE": I could imagine her doing this show. TRUMP: She'd be laying -- she'd be laying --
ROGAN: I'm trying --
TRUMP: -- in the floor --
ROGAN: She was supposed to do it and then she might still do it --
TRUMP: She wasn't going to do it.
ROGAN: -- and I hope she does.
TRUMP: She's not going to do it.
ROGAN: I will talk to her like a human being. I will try to have a conversation with her.
TRUMP: If she did this kind of an interview with you -- I hope she does because it would be a mess. She'd be laying in the floor comatose. She'd -- you'd be saying call in the medics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Harris' team addressed whether Harris should have gone on Joe Rogan's podcast and tried to explain why it never happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANIE CUTTER, SENIOR ADVISER TO VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS: Yeah, there's a lot of intrigue around this.
DANIEL PFEIFFER, HOST, "POD SAVE AMERICA": Yes.
CUTTER: A lot of theories. It's pretty simple. We wanted to do it. We had discussions with Joe Rogan's team. They were great. They wanted us to come on. We wanted to come on. We tried to get a date to make it work and ultimately, we just weren't able to find a date. But it, you know, didn't ultimately impact the outcome one way or the other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, joining us now to discuss, Washington correspondent for Spectrum News NY1, Kevin Frey. And Washington correspondent for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Tia Mitchell. Welcome to both of you.
TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Good morning.
HUNT: Great to see you.
KEVIN FREY, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SPECTRUM NEWS NY1: Good morning.
HUNT: So trying to explain kind of what went wrong here for them. It's interesting to hear them try to say well, this is why we didn't do this one particular thing. She seems -- that was Stephanie Cutter there who is, of course, a longtime political hand here in Washington and played a critical role in the Harris campaign.
What do you make of her explanation, Kevin?
FREY: I mean, look, it seems like the overarching theme of all of this goes back to one, as you mentioned, the short timeline that they had to operate within.
I think part of their explanation when it came to the Joe Rogan was they said they tried to look at maybe doing it while she was in Texas for the reproductive rights rally, and then Trump was actually on at the same exact time, and thus they couldn't do it because of that.
But they kind of kept going back to these familiar themes of short timeline. Had to introduce her because people didn't know her, contrary to popular belief. And then also, at the same time, had to remind people of why Trump was bad, which they said the polling was moving in the wrong direction for them and had been for some time. So they had to combat that at the same time.
[05:35:05]
MITCHELL: Yeah. I think it was really interesting that they kept coming back to the choices they had to make. And, yes, they didn't have a lot of time. Yes, there was lot for them to do during that time.
But I think at the end of the day choices were made. So they made choices about what podcasts they would and wouldn't do. They made choices about what media interviews they would and wouldn't do. And now in hindsight they can say well, was that the right formula?
But I think -- I think we can't take the eye off the fact that they made deliberate choices. If she wanted to make time to do Joe Rogan she could have, but something else could have fallen off. And maybe it wouldn't have moved the needle but that's really what we're talking about at this point.
HUNT: Yeah.
So, Stephanie Cutter also talked a little bit about her relationship with Joe Biden because, of course, this was one of those -- when she did start doing interviews, she didn't necessarily answer the question of how are you different --
FREY: Yeah.
HUNT: -- from President Biden in a way that made people feel like she would be a break from the past.
Here's what Stephanie Cutter had to say about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUTTER: On the Biden question, we, of course, got that everywhere we went. And we knew what the data was. We knew we had to show her as her own person and point to the future and not try to rehash the past.
But she also felt that she was part of the administration and unless we said something like well, I would have handled the border completely differently, we were never going to satisfy anybody. So why should she look back and pick out -- cherry pick some things that she would have done differently when she was part of it?
And she also -- she had tremendous loyalty to President Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, it's illuminating, Tia.
MITCHELL: It is, and I think that was kind of when you read between the lines of what she didn't say during that interview, that's why, but I think there could have been a better answer in real time.
I think she could have made it clear that she is ready to be her own person should she have been elected president without throwing Joe Biden under the bus or even undermining some of the decisions he made. But instead, her answer kind of fell flat and it came across that she didn't -- that she hadn't thought about what she would do differently should she be president.
I'm not saying she didn't, but I'm saying the answer didn't convey that. The answer unfortunately conveyed the message that she would be in lockstep in more of the same, and that didn't play when his approval ratings were way down, and a lot of people felt that the Biden-Harris four years made their lives worse off.
HUNT: Yeah -- no.
So one of the other elements to all of this is that there was some reporting in the wake of the campaign that some of the concern about, say, Joe Rogan or other things may have come from either liberal interest groups or people working inside the campaign -- younger staffers.
James Carville -- he of -- you know, profane mouth --
FREY: It's the economy, stupid.
HUNT: -- often, as well as the creator of the tagline "It's the economy, stupid" -- weighed in on some of this yesterday, unsolicited I would imagine. But let's watch what Carville said.
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JAMES CARVILLE, VETERAN DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: The vice president was thinking about going on Joe Rogan's show and a lot of the younger progressive staffers pitched a hissy fit.
If I were running a 2028 campaign and I had some little snot-nosed 23- year-old saying I'm going to resign if you don't do this, not only would I fire that (bleep) on the spot, I would find out who hired them and fire that person on the spot. I'm really not interested in your uninformed, stupid (bleep) opinion as to whether you go on Joe Rogan or not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, of course, again, the profane -- profanity that Carville uses there. But the point he's making is an interesting one and honestly, it plays into the culture war argument overall that Democrats are more interested in this than they are in winning.
FREY: Right. And, I mean, this comes, of course, as you also are coming off of months of the protests on college campuses and Democrats struggling to figure out how to navigate that without offending half of the country at the same time.
One of the things I think some would probably push back and say Carville is -- he won in the 1990s and it is now 2020 -- 24.
But it does play into this whole conversation that they were touching on in this podcast about how do you get to people now, especially folks that are not fully engaged? It seems Joe Rogan was one of the gateways for that, especially when you saw less engaged, less likely to vote folks actually head out to the polls --
HUNT: Um-hum.
FREY: -- for Trump. And it seems, at least from the recrimination points of view, that's one of the frustrations with this campaign.
HUNT: Yeah.
[05:40:00]
And briefly, Tia, I do want to just play what David Plouffe, as well as Quentin Fulks had to say about that -- the trans ad, right, that we -- we've spent a lot of time talking about it -- that basically just candidly says Kamala Harris is for they/them; Donald Trump is for you -- a very simple message.
Here's what they had to say about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUENTIN FULKS, DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER, HARRIS FOR PRESIDENT: Obviously, it was a very effective ad at the end. I ultimately don't believe that it was about the issue of trans. I think that it made her seem out of touch and it was sort of a pseudo economic ad underneath it.
DAVID PLOUFFE, SENIOR ADVISER TO VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS: Well, at the end of the day we were spending a lot of time with voters in these battleground states, both quantitatively and quantitively. And this trans ad was not driving voters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So it makes me wonder if they were asking about trans as the issue, but that what Quentin Fulks was describing there was really --
MITCHELL: Yeah.
HUNT: -- what was going on. That it was much bigger than just that issue.
MITCHELL: And also, Quentin made the point that the ads were targeting men -- mainly Black and Latino men. So it kind of gets at some of the kind of social divisions and cultural war divisions as well.
But it did. It made it seem -- you know, she's not for -- she's for they/them; she's not for you -- making it seem like Trump is the one who's going to look out for you and make your life better while Kamala Harris is focused on this kind of culture issue that doesn't speak to your own live experience.
And I do agree that it's not necessarily bad. That particular issue was a driver but the deeper messaging -- it got -- again, it got to key demographics, it got to the economic issue, and it got to the culture war basically all in one tagline. That's what it so effective.
And again, yes, they talked about the fact that they didn't get asked enough and they had a good answer, but --
HUNT: Yeah.
MITCHELL: -- they didn't get to spread that message. Again, choices were made. They chose not to directly respond to that ad.
HUNT: And again, the best political messages are the simplest ones. Over and over and over again we find that.
Tia Mitchell, Kevin Frey, thank you both for being here on this Thanksgiving eve. I appreciate it.
All right, coming up next, it is on track to be one of the busiest Thanksgiving travel seasons ever, but air traffic controller staffing shortages could cause major headaches if you are trying to fly.
Plus, the Lakers losing their first-ever NBA Cup. We'll have that and more on the Bleacher Report coming up next.
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[05:46:40]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holiday travel is -- it's a pain in the -- a pain in the ass. It's significantly busier than it was last time I was over here. I'm probably going to be standing for, like, a good hour before I get to my gate.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: Some truth there. With the TSA predicting the busiest holiday travel season ever for this Thanksgiving it's really not a good time for air traffic controller staffing shortages. Frustrating delays already piling up at airports like Newark International. The FAA warning there will be intentional slowdowns over the holiday, especially here in the Northeast.
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MICHAEL WHITAKER, ADMINISTRATOR, FAA: These initiatives keep the system safe, and people should know that safety is never at risk. If we are short on staff, we will show traffic as needed to keep the system safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Air traffic control shortages may have contributed to two separate collisions in a single day this week at Boston's Logan airport.
CNN transportation analyst Mary Schiavo joins us now with more. Mary, good morning to you. How bad is this shortage, and what impact does it have on air travel?
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (via Webex by Cisco): Well, any air traffic control shortage is bad but this one's particularly bad because it's been so long ongoing.
You know, the FAA still goes back and blames it on COVID but it's their fault. They stopped training and hiring during COVID. And, of course, if they didn't have new controllers coming in the pipeline for training obviously, they knew that in a year or two they'd have a shortage, and that's what's occurring now.
They say they were 3,000 short this year but they hired 1,800. Now, your math and my math says yeah, that's not enough, but the FAA says they met their goal. And so that's the frustration that the airlines and travelers share.
So this flow control where they intentionally slow things down obviously puts more space between aircraft. I mean, flying is space in time, and you've got to have enough time between the aircraft to have separation. So that's why they're intentionally slowing things down.
The airlines are frustrated, and travelers will be very frustrated, but they have to count on luck. They better hope that the weather doesn't add delays and trouble on top of this because that will be a meltdown. The traffic is dramatically up.
HUNT: So, Mary, what can you tell people about the safety of travel right now, and if there is anything that they can or should be doing differently?
SCHIAVO: Well, first of all, cooperate with the TSA. We haven't mentioned the TSA. They are going to screen more passengers than they have on the Fourth of July. Over that weekend it was a record. This weekend will top that. And so, leave the gravy at home if you can.
But, you know, I'm -- in a couple of hours I'm going to be out there in that mess, too, and so I'm obviously going to be patient and follow all the rules.
But in terms of safety, as long as they keep this separation between aircraft -- because that's their job -- keeping aircraft apart from each other -- everything's good and everything's safe.
The increases have happened on -- at the airport -- runway incursions, planes colliding into each other on the runways, et cetera, and that has been more prevalent at certain airports.
The FAA says they're going to have a special watch. You know, they're going to be on special alert for that. But again, that requires having enough staffing in the actual towers; not necessarily the facilities that direct you to TRACONs when you're flying through the air.
[05:50:05]
So if people want to feel good -- at one point, as soon as you're up in the air after you take off, you're in the safest part of your flight. So the collisions have been happening on the ground at the airports. So once you're at cruise you can take a snooze and then you can feel relaxed.
But it's going to be -- if weather compounds this it will be a terrible traveling experience, which I hope it doesn't because I'm going to be out there in just a few hours.
HUNT: OK. Well, I hope your day goes smoothly. I hope all of -- everyone who's watching -- and many of them are probably actually at the airport right now. Although if you've gotten there already --
SCHIAVO: Right.
HUNT: -- you're probably in good shape. I don't -- I don't know about you, but I always like to take the first flight out of the day if possible because it's, like, the least likely to get delayed.
Anyway, Mary --
SCHIAVO: That's right.
HUNT: -- thank you. Happy Thanksgiving. I appreciate it.
SCHIAVO: Thank you.
HUNT: OK.
SCHIAVO: OK, thank you.
HUNT: Let's turn now to sports. The Suns handing the Lakers their first-ever loss in the NBA Cup last night.
Carolyn Manno has this morning's Bleacher Report. Carolyn, good morning.
CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
So, Kasie, the Lakers went undefeated, but it was the first edition of the in-season tournament a year ago. The Suns proving to be too much this time around thanks in large part to the return of the big three in Phoenix. Devin Booker welcoming back his partners Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal who were both sidelined with calf strains -- and both really sharp.
Durant, a nice little three on the break and drives the lane for the slam. He had 23. And so did Beal who actually ran down LeBron for the block at one point. This trio combining for 72 points in a 127-100 win. And it's the second-straight game the Lakers have been blown out.
Kevin Durant says he's happy to be back on the floor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN DURANT, FORWARD, PHOENIX SUNS: It felt great. It felt great. The orange floor gave me some energy. Our crowd gave us some energy. It was good to come back here on the home floor against a great team like that, you know. So we needed this win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MANNO: Giannis Antetokounmpo, a late scratch for the Bucks because of swelling in his left knee. But that didn't stop his team from continuing their fine run of form. Fellow superstar Damian Lillard picking up the slack, scoring 37 and dishing out 12 dimes.
Milwaukee held off a late Miami charge to win 106-103. And after a dreadful 2-8 start they've actually won seven of their last eight. They're now back to 500 on the young season.
Let's go to college hoops now. Top-ranked Kansas battling 11th-ranked Duke. Midway through the second half Hunter Dickinson and Maliq Brown getting tangled up fighting for a rebound. Both fell to the ground with Dickinson actually kicking Brown in the head. Not sure if the intent was truly there but Dickinson did get a flagrant foul. He was ejected from the game.
And a little over a minute later Duke's high-flying freshman Cooper Flagg soaring about the defense -- an emphatic dunk to tie it at 61. But the Jayhawks too tough in this game. Zeke Mayo -- runner in the lane to give Kansas the lead that they never relinquished. So Kansas wins by three to improve to 6-0 now with wins over both Duke and North Carolina.
And a big shakeup in the latter half of the College Football Playoff bracket. Tennessee, SMU, Arizona State are in. Alabama, Ole Miss, BYU are out. The Vols are projected to get a massive rematch with Georgia in the first round at this point. Indiana staying in despite their blowout loss at Ohio State. They would face Big Ten rival Penn State.
Could we see more chaos this weekend though, absolutely. A huge slate of rivalry games. Arizona State is going to head to the Big 12 title game if they can win at Arizona. Ohio State can clinch a spot in the Big 10 title game against Oregon. If they beat their archrivals Michigan. And Texas and Texas A&M facing off for a spot in the SEC title game. And the winner of that game will face Georgia.
So turkey, hopefully safe travel, football -- it's all happening, and it could be a very explosive weekend.
HUNT: It is all happening. And I usually love -- I usually love that rivalry game. I'm a little nervous about it this weekend. I'm a -- as a Michigan fan, I don't, you know --
MANNO: Ah.
HUNT: I don't -- I don't know how it's going to go this time around. But as a Michigan family it was always the Lions and then the rivalry game in recent years.
MANNO: It's so good.
HUNT: So I'm used to teams that we watch losing Thanksgiving weekend, but what are you going to do?
Carolyn Manno --
MANNO: We have other things to be thankful for -- yeah.
HUNT: Yes, we do. Plenty of other things.
MANNO: Right, yeah.
HUNT: I'm thankful for you. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We'll see you soon.
MANNO: You, too.
HUNT: All right. Straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, Trump's new border czar visits Texas. How he's already butting heads with local leaders who are trying to block his plans for mass deportation.
Plus, a breakthrough ceasefire deal. How the president is hoping for one more agreement to cross the finish line before he leaves office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Over the coming days the United States will make another push to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, the hostages released, and the end of the war without Hama in power, that becomes possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:59:15]
HUNT: It's Wednesday, November 27. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We are changing the face of the Middle East.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: A fragile peace. Israel's prime minister celebrates a temporary ceasefire with Hezbollah.
And --
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TOM HOMAN, INCOMING TRUMP BORDER CZAR: Me and the Denver mayor -- we agree on one thing. He's willing to go to jail; I'm willing to put him in jail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Tough talk. The nation's next border czar threatening to jail anyone who tries to block Trump's mass deportations.
And --
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PLOUFFE: The political atmosphere was pretty brutal, and that's not an excuse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Looking for answers. The leaders of Kamala Harris' failed campaign open up about what they think went wrong.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAYLOR SWIFT, SINGER-SONGWRITER: It's going to be called the Eras Tour. See you there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The end of an era. Taylor Swift winding down her monumental tour raising questions about what comes next for the superstar.
